Susan Block, also known as Dr. Susan Block and Dr. Suzy, is an American sex therapist, author, filmmaker, cable TVtalk show host, and cultural commentator. She is perhaps best known for her television specials on HBO. She is the founder and director of The Dr. Susan Block Institute for the Erotic Arts & Sciences.[1]

Block is also known for her bacchanalian celebrations attended by couples and other participants, as well as her Internet, TV and radio shows featuring professors and porn stars, erotic art exhibitions, sex educational salons, seminars and other events at the Dr. Susan Block Institute for the Erotic Arts & Sciences, a.k.a. Dr. Suzy's Speakeasy in Los Angeles. Block, although she has no formal license or certification in the field, is also a self-proclaimed sex therapist in private practice and works with clients from all over the world, using her therapy techniques to deal with various sexual problems, both in person and over the telephone.[8] Her "sex therapy" is available 24 hours a day, and some of the "therapy" is provided by collaborating porn stars.[9]

In late 1984, she met her husband-to-be Maximillian Rudolph Lobkowicz-Filangieri through KIEV. Though they became good friends, they were in relationships with other people, and didn’t get romantically involved until six years later. In 1986, Block started some of the first 976 and 900 number telephone dating, advice and fantasy lines. That year, she also started co-ghostwriting the best-selling book Being a Woman (Random House), which was published in 1988 and became a New York Timesbestseller, with pioneer radio psychologist Dr. Toni Grant. In 1987, Block moved her radio program to KFOX 93.5 FM, where it became less of a matchmaking show and more of a call-in talk show about sex, politics and culture with guests like Dr. Timothy Leary, John Densmore of The Doors and comedian Sam Kinison. During this time, she also contributed short stories to Dr. Lonnie Barbach's anthologies, Pleasures, Erotic Interludes and The Erotic Encounter. She wrote the last story with Lobkowicz.

In 1990, Block collaborated with Lobkowicz to produce the audio cassette series “Desert Susan,” distributed to the troops of Desert Storm, and “Bedtime Stories for Adults.” They also published Dr. Block's Journal. In 1992, Block and Lobkowicz got married in Philadelphia. That same year, they began filming Block's radio show, now called The Dr. Susan Block Show, for cable TV. They also founded the Dr. Susan Block Institute for the Erotic Arts & Sciences. In 1993, Block's show was syndicated nationwide on over 75 radio stations through the Independent Broadcasters Network. In 1996, after the owners of IBN were indicted for fraud, Block started one of the Internet's first radio stations, RADIOSUZY1.com, where her show is still broadcast, live and taped, 24 hours a day. That year, she also hosted her first HBO special, Radio Sex TV with Dr. Susan Block, and published her third book The 10 Commandments of Pleasure: Erotic Keys to a Healthy, Sexual Life (St. Martin's Press).

In 1994, Block first saw the “Make-Love-Not-War” bonobo chimpanzees on PBS, and in 1996, she started the Block Bonobo Foundation, an advocacy group for the highly endangered bonobos who also figure prominently in her book The 10 Commandments of Pleasure. Called "the Erin Brockovich of the Bonobo" by Salon, Block uses the highly sexual, relatively non-violent and non-male-dominant bonobo "lifestyle" as inspiration for her philosophy of “Ethical Hedonism,” a.k.a. “The Bonobo Way of Peace through Pleasure.” She contributes to the conservation efforts of the Bonobo Conservation Initiative and Lola ya Bonobo, among others. She has produced several bonobo oriented radio and TV shows and DVD's including "The Bonobo Conservation Revolution" with Deni Béchard, "The Bonobo Handshake" with Vanessa Woods, The Bonobo Imperative with Bushmeat Project Director Tony Rose, "Letter to Kabilah," "Peace, Love and Bonobos" with Sally Jewell Coxe and “The Bonobo Way” with HarvardanthropologistRichard Wrangham. She is also featured in the documentaries Cousin Bonobo and Humanimal, among others. Her book The Bonobo Way: The Evolution of Peace Through Pleasure was published in November, 2014.

In 1998, BlockFilms began producing the Encyclopedia of Sex & Fetish series, including “The New Horny Housewife”, “Feet: An Erotic Study in Podophilic Sexuality”, “Kenneth W. Starr: A Pornographer for Our Times”, “Vibrators & other lovers”, “The Fine Art of Fellatio”, “Luscious Cunnilingus”, “Sex Heals” and “Spanking for Adults Only,”. Around this time, Block became a consultant for the Los AngelesPublic Defender's Office, Death Penalty Sex Crimes Division.

Also, in 1998, she moved her institute and production company from the “Villa Piacere” in the Hollywood Hills to “Dr. Suzy's Speakeasy” in Downtown LA. “We call it a Speakeasy because we speak about subjects that are not so easy to speak about,” says Block. The Speakeasy Gallery of Erotic Art exhibits erotic art works from artists around the world. Block's first gallery opening was featured on HBO's Real Sex. The scene at Dr. Suzy's Speakeasy is often described as “Felliniesque” and “Warholesque.”

On January 22, 2000, Block, Lobkowicz and Lasse Braun, the “Father of Euro Porn,” joined forces to produce the first celebration of “Eros Day,” a holiday of lust and pleasure held on the day of the year when the planetoid433 Eros is closest to Earth. The Block Institute celebrates Eros Day every January. In 2004, it was called Eros Day: The Counter-Inaugural Ball.

After the September 11, 2001 attacks, Block began writing The Terror Journals, a series of essays which Steven Mikulan in the LA Weekly called "among the most readable to come out of LA, smartly combining outrage...with levelheaded warnings about the loss of civil liberties."

In 2003, Block and Lobkowicz founded the Cannes Press Club in Cannes, France, began publishing the Cannes Bla Bla online, and broadcasting shows in Paris and the South of France. In 2004, she starred in The A-Z of Fetish.

In 2005, Block produced, directed and hosted Dr. Suzy's Squirt Salon: Secrets of Female Ejaculation, featuring Deborah Sundahl and Annie Body, premiering at the Barcelona Erotic Film Festival and New York City's CineKink Film Festival. Dr. John Perry, author of the best-seller The G-Spot, calls Dr. Suzy's Squirt Salon “Masterful...raising the bar for female ejaculation videos”. In 2005, she also started working with award-winning filmmaker Canaan Brumley on a documentary entitled Speakeasy which will be released in 2008.

Besides ethical hedonism and the Bonobo Way, Block promotes what she calls “Pleasure Sex”, sex that is recreational, healthful, relationship-oriented or celebratory as opposed to reproductive. She also advocates what she calls “Faith-Based Sex” and “Blue Values”. Cara Jepsen put it this way in the Illinois Entertainer: "Dr. Susan Block's HBO specials expose inhibited Middle America to the idea that it's OK to discuss—and enjoy—sex...”

Bedtime Stories for Adults (audio series, 1991), featuring "The Great Train Ride", "Passions of the Plaza" and "Office Fantasies"

Dr. Susan Block's Journal (magazine, 1991)

Desert Susan (audio series, 1990)

The Dr. Susan Block Show (radio show, 1984- ), formerly called Radio Match, Date Nite and The Susan Block Show, Block's talk show has gone from radio to cable TV to the Internet. As of 2007, Block has produced over 1000 installments of her radio program, over 800 cable TV shows and many more Internet shows.